Summer Starts Now?
An entire saga of summer skate camp just ended (yay!), and without further ado, we packed up the car to go camping out on the Oregon Coast. To make summer and stuff. But I don't know. All the camp sites in every campground in a 50 mile radius were full. Grid lock traffic. Coffee shops packed with the obese and children wearing rollerblades. So Much Ice Cream being consumed. It was a horror show. So we cooled out at the beach for a bit and then split for Portland. The coast on a sunny summer weekend—I don't even want it. Let the kooks have it.
That's a sandy doggy.
Later that night, the Bracewells had a lil backyard ramp jam and called it the Salmon Jam. Loads of bros came through, old friends, new friends, people I didn't know. So much fun. Not another thing I'd rather be doing on a summer night.
Basil Cubes: Preserving Summer’s Bounty
Wouldn’t be nice if nature doled stuff out in little bite-sized parcels? A couple carrots here, a sprig of dill there, plus an ear or two of corn for you to roast with your beer brat? But noooo, that’s not how it works. One minute you’ve got tumbleweeds rolling through your refrigerator, the next minute you’re watching YouTube how-tos on pickling, saucing, and dehydrating—just so you can clear up some space in your crisper for the squash and zucchini that’s out there rotting on the vine.
Last month, I wrote about what to do if you had a cilantro blowout in your herb garden (cilantro pesto! http://burtongirls.com/health-and-beauty/cilantro-pesto-fast-fresh-potently-delicious/). Now it’s time to talk about basil—that leafy herb whose deep fragrance can make the simplest cheese-and-tomato sandwich something else entirely.
Now, basil’s a little sensitive. It doesn’t stick around too long after you chop it and bring it inside, but if you try to nurse a plant in the ground for too long, it’ll just give you the finger and go to seed. Also, it’s not one of those herbs that dries very well. It’s definitely best when it’s fresh. So, when the basil’s bangin’—that’s the time to act!
Here’s an easy, quick way to preserve fresh basil’s voluptuous perfume:
- Chop up a pile of the stuff and sprinkle it into ice-cube trays until they’re about half full.
- Fill the trays with water.
- Stick ’em in the freezer.
- Use at will.
P.S. This treatment works well for lots of different herbs, so don’t be shy.
Summer Scenery
I've been wearing the same jean shorts for a week now. Why? Because it's August! It'll be fun when the heat breaks to remember about wearing pants again. The size of your wearable closet, like, doubles once pants get thrown back in the mix. But we're not there yet, you guys.
So, this weekend: three rivers in three days. Or, two rivers, three spots, if you want to be technical. And real swimming, where you dive in glide under the surface for a while—not just paddling on the top with your sunglasses on and not getting your hair wet.
Actually, Saturday on the Sandy got a little wild. Lance and I tried to be lazy and forge down river to find our friends instead of going back up the trail and around. Have you seen The River Wild? It was kinda like that, without the Kevin Bacon and John C Reilly characters trying to kill us. We definitely scaled cliff walls. I definitely had to save frantic li'l Lefty from getting swept away by jamming my feet in some rocks and and bear-hugging him against the raging current. And we never did make it down to our friends. But that's okay, it was kind of fun after the fact—a little adventure that bonded the three of us.
The road home from the river. I could live right there, on that farm with the neat row of poplars or whatever they are and those golden fields spreading out all around. I mean, right?!
I think you can tell by this picture what the heat feels like, how it sorta drains everything of color and you just scurry from shadow to shadow until there's nothin to do but lay around and pant.
But: imagine if you had a big hairy suit you could never take off? What then? Just find a shady spot and nest.
Burn Out
"I sit by the fire of my life in Paris and wonder when this life here will start to burn brightly. So far it looks like those electric logs in artificial fireplaces burning with moderate glow and without sparkle or warmth."—from The Dairy of Anais Ninn.
Do you ever feel like that? I do.
Sun Down Time
For various reasons I won't mention here, I've found myself alone out in the world for about one hour per evening, right around sunset, and I've found that I don't want to sit at home (although my backyard IS one of the best places on earth). Instead, I'll just strike out in the car until I come to somewhere nice, and then I'll get out and wander.
I've found that all sorts of people like to be out at sunset doing this exact thing—that we all kind of converge on these lovely parks and other spaces our city has constructed for us, and we talk in hushed tones or don't talk, and we watch as the light turns from white to gold to amber/honey, and, and, and, then it's over and we all go home.
